


incidental

by mutterandmumble



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Canon Compliant, Explicit Language, Gen, Group dynamics, Humor, POV Outsider, beleaguered minimum wage employee vs the world, takes place a little after trb
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-10
Updated: 2020-10-10
Packaged: 2021-03-08 00:34:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,113
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26926684
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mutterandmumble/pseuds/mutterandmumble
Summary: The last boy is the tallest of them all. He’s dressed all in black right down to his boots- one of which is untied- and his head is shaved. There’s the edges of a tattoo creeping up over his shoulder blades, barely visible beneath the wide straps of his faded old tank top, and Connie would be curious had her attention not been diverted by the more pressing matters, like theraventhat this guy just brought into thisconvenience storelike it’s a normal thing that normal people do.Or: in which the gangsey visits a convenience store, common sense is not and likely neverwillbe a factor, and Connie Palmer considers a change in employment
Comments: 8
Kudos: 48





	incidental

**Author's Note:**

> I’ve never written this sort of fic before but I’ve always thought they were fun so I was excited to give it a shot!! I will say that this was written in disconnected bursts though, mostly because I’ve been busy with school stuff. I haven’t had a thought unrelated to photosynthesis or cell signaling in days.
> 
> That said, I hope you enjoy!!

When Connie Palmer is eighteen years old, she gets a job at the convenience store three blocks, two crosswalks, and one crumbling old street corner away from her home. It’s a job, nothing more and nothing less, and she’s excited mostly to have some money in her pocket, something substantial to fund her early morning McDonald’s runs. She’s stuck on the graveyard shift which is significantly  _ less  _ exciting, seven hours straight and ending just a little past two, and she’s used to things being dead and dry and about as interesting as watching the shitty convenience store hot dogs turn in the shitty convenience store oven. There’s not much else to look at. She knows this store inside and out because she’s been visiting for most of her life- for as long as anyone’s known it’s stood old and dilapidated on the side of the road, sagging down onto the curb, and for as long as she’s been able to crawl or toddle or walk Connie’s been perusing its selection of off-brand soda and year-old candy bars and chip bags filled mostly with air. 

Now a consequence to being so familiar with a place is learning to turn a blind eye. Connie may have visited this store throughout nearly all of her life but she’s lived in Henrietta for even longer, and she knows it forward and back and inside and out and from one side to the other with the sort of inevitable intimacy forced by constant proximity. She loves Henrietta, the skies so blue they’re electric and the grass that’s waist-high and home to all sorts of dangerous little things- snakes and bees and bugs, thistles and thorns and sharp, sharp rocks- and she loves the thrill of running along the muddy side roads during a storm as the rain spatters over her shoulders and the wind rustles quiet through the trees,  _ shhhh, shhhh, shhhh,  _ like the soothing sounds her mother used to make when she was young. Connie likes to feel alive, and that’s all well and good but from what she can figure Henrietta likes to feel alive as well, right down to the marrow. 

It’s one of those things everyone knows but nobody talks about; if you stray too far off the beaten path then the beaten path starts to breathe and then the forest starts to breathe and then the earth heaves and bucks and burns and by that point things start to fall apart, so it’s better not to say anything at all. Take it in, let it change you in a series of slight and imperceptible ways, and then turn around and say _well that was strange_ and move on with your life. 

So Connie lives in the pocket of oddity, experiences it secondhand and thinks of it like a friend of a friend of a friend. She doesn’t go poking around in the forest, and she doesn’t go jumping into puddles or looking too long into thrift store mirrors because she’s learned enough from the unspoken rapport among the citizens of Henrietta to not think too much of it if her reflection lags for a second or a rumor starts circulating that one of the ladies down the street can tell you the exact date of your death, down to the day. That one’s probably true anyways. One of those ladies once let Connie use her phone because hers had died and she needed to call her mother to come pick her up, and it would have been a very nice gesture had Connie  _ known  _ that her phone was dead before the lady came sidling up beside her. 

Well, whatever. Henrietta is as Henrietta does, and the convenience store is as the convenience store does, and Connie is as Connie does. It’s all the same day in and day out, and right now when she’s standing behind the counter with her half-apron tied taut around her waist and her head propped up in her hand, hunched over in the deserted store and sure that she’s the only living thing for miles, Connie feels that she’s stuck in the least exciting place on the planet. The sky is murky gray with light pollution, the fluorescents of the store a harsh yellow-white; their neon red OPEN sign is blinking in the window, humming and flickering, and Connie has been staring at the freezers along the back wall for so long that she’s going cross-eyed. There’s no one else inside, and there’s no one getting gas at one of the three pumps outside, and it’s just barely edging on two and Connie is bored out of her mind and the music playing over the speakers is driving her  _ crazy  _ and she just wants  _ something _ to happen; something, anything, anything at all. 

And then a bright orange car rolls up outside, and a gaggle of teens about her age pile out, and Connie begins to wish  _ fervently  _ that she had never wanted something, anything, anything at all, and then she wonders if she somehow wondered this bright orange car and these bright, loud people into existence, because Henrietta is  _ strange  _ and she’s seen so many  _ strange  _ things happen and it’s past two so she’s really not thinking straight right now. 

Regardless she straightens up and pastes on her past-midnight customer service expression- no smile, dead eyes, as detached as she can look without causing concern- and steels herself as the group hops up the curb and through the doors, shoving at each other and laughing among themselves with more energy than they ought to have for this time of night. She can tell as soon as they come tumbling in four strong that they’re going to be trouble; they’ve got an electric feel about them, the brazen confidence of people who believe that, at least for the night, they’re invincible. Connie knows the type. Connie’s  _ been  _ the type, and she can say with certainty that it is a much better feeling to experience than to observe. 

This is a strange group too. Three boys, one girl. The girl is short. The boys are not. The girl’s hair is dark and curly, peppered with bright colored clips that match her strange outfit- a ripped-up shirt that hits her mid-thigh, ripped up jeans that are cuffed at the end, and bits of odd-colored fabrics and mesh and lace that peek through the holes- and next to her is a boy who  _ reeks  _ of money, straight-backed and broad-shouldered, hair mussed up and glasses perched on the end of his nose and an Aglionby sweatshirt thrown on over a pair of khaki shorts. It is not a good look. Connie decides not to think about it, for her peace of mind. 

One of the other boys leans down to mumble something to the short girl- Connie doesn’t hear it but she laughs, and when the boy straightens back up he looks straight at her. His eyes are a little vacant, his expression a little blank, the slope of his shoulders slow and sure. His hair is warm brown, there’s a spray of freckles spattered over his nose, and he is tall and lean and sharp with high cheekbones arched over hollow cheeks. Connie shivers a little and turns to the last boy; none of these people strike her as someone that she would like to bother, and she’d rather not linger on any one of them for too long. Better to get her curiosity out of the way nice and fast before it comes back to bite her, better to do this in one fell swoop and then forget about it to maintain her peace of mind. 

The last boy is the tallest of them all. He’s dressed all in black right down to his boots- one of which is untied- and his head is shaved. There’s the edges of a tattoo creeping up over his shoulder blades, barely visible beneath the wide straps of his faded old tank top, and Connie would be curious had her attention not been diverted by the more pressing matters, like the fucking  _ raven  _ that this guy just brought into this fucking  _ convenience store  _ like it’s a normal thing that normal people do. 

Now Connie knows in the deep, visceral way that people around here sometimes know things that not one person in this group is strictly  _ normal,  _ but Connie can only put up with so much and these people could be a group of demons here to drag her down to hell itself and she’d tell them to stop tracking the souls of the dead all over her floor, goddamnit! She mopped earlier! And yes, a lifetime of experience in Henrietta has led her to pretend not to see things much stranger than this but there is a sign on the door and the start of a flame in Connie’s stomach and she does  _ not  _ have to let this slide. Sure she may find herself stuck in a mirror dimension or thrust into a hellish, sped-up cycle of death and rebirth just for being a little rude- it’s happened before, it’ll happen again- but she  _ needs  _ to keep this job and to do that she  _ needs  _ to keep the peace, and she is not going to let some rich boy with a raven and a thinly-veiled inferiority complex get in the way of that. 

“Sir,” she starts, sure to interject as much authority as she can muster into her voice. When he doesn’t answer (not one of them so much as twitches, just keep on carrying on as if she said nothing at all) she coughs as loudly as she can and repeats herself with more force: “SIR.”

They quiet down and turn to her all at once. It’s a little creepy, and the lights have started flickering and the air’s gone cold and try as she might Connie can’t seem to concentrate on the person-sized space between Boat Shoes Boy and Short Girl for longer than a second.  _ God  _ it’s going to be a long few minutes- she’s learned how to tell in this sort of situation- and Connie figures that the best way to get this over with is to cut right to the meat of things so she takes a deep breath in and raises one heavy, heavy hand to point at the fucking  _ raven  _ perched on the tall guy’s shoulder. “I’m afraid that our establishment doesn’t allow animals.”

They’re all silent for a couple seconds more, and then the one with the cheekbones lets out a long sigh. 

“Alright, then,” he says, making for the raven. “Well I’ll take Chainsaw so you can wait outside Lynch, and we’ll come get you after-” 

“Oh fuck  _ off _ ,” Raven Guy snarls at him. He jerks backwards, rolls his shoulder out and then shoots Connie a scowl that could curdle milk. Connie is immune because Connie does not  _ give  _ a shit. Fucking  _ boys  _ and their fucking  _ ravens  _ walking into  _ her _ fucking store and acting like they own the place _. _ Connie just wants to get paid. Connie does not want to have to deal with whatever extended power trip these people seem to be on.

“Why don’t we calm down a bit,” Boat Shoes Boy says. Short Girl loses interest the moment that he starts talking and moves to the side, setting herself in front of one of the shelves and then rifling through their selection of chips; she seems to be accompanied by a slight breeze, a shift and crinkle of the foil regardless of the fact that they are inside and there should be no  _ shift  _ or  _ crinkle  _ or anything of the sort to speak of. Connie ignores it. Connie focuses on the matter at hand, the matter at hand being Boat Shoes Boy who has approached the counter and is standing in front of her now, face fixed in a smile that shows off his perfectly straight teeth. He doesn’t have a single hair out of place, and Connie is not entirely sure that he’s real. 

“Could you make an exception? Just this once?” he asks, leaning forwards to press his palms into the space between the gum display and the shelf with the lined-up boxes of candy. His smile doesn’t slip; he does not look any worse under the fluorescents than Connie imagines he would look anywhere else, which is to say that he looks no worse at all. He is made of copper or bronze or diamond, and he is not real. Connie is so, so tired.  __

“May I ask why?” she grumbles, but in the passive-aggressive, empty way that would give her plausible deniability if she were accused of daring to show negative emotion in a situation where it is, in fact, perfectly reasonable to show negative emotion. The boy in front of her coughs into his fist, short and sharp and through to his shoulders though the rest of him hardly falters. 

“She,” he says, and then coughs again. He doesn’t  _ look  _ nervous, and he doesn’t  _ seem  _ unsure, so Connie assumes that he must be sick and tries her hardest to lean a little further away without making it too obvious that she really would rather be home by now instead of sitting here and holding a conversation about something that  _ should  _ have been prevented by some common fucking sense. “She- the bird- gets nervous if we leave her in the car.” 

“Really,” Connie says dryly, drawing the word out through her teeth. That’s what he’s going with? A bold strategy. The inevitable wreck that this conversation is sure to be has drawn the other two boys over now too, flanking the first boy on either side though the one with the cheekbones doesn’t look too happy about it. Raven Guy looks directly at her, bold and a bit rude; his eyes are sharp and piercing, his general vibe  _ atrocious,  _ and Connie stares right back at him all while ignoring the little tremors of unease that are pricking at the base of her spine.  _ Fuck  _ the little tremors of unease. This is personal now. 

“Really. It’s a whole thing,” Cheekbones grits out like it physically pains him to do so. His voice is carefully flat in the way of someone trying to hide their accent, which Connie only knows because it’s something she likes to do when she’s bored; seeing how unrecognizable she can make herself sound without coming across as robotic. It’s a strange thing to see in action though, and odd as Cheekbones in particular may be (something in the way that he holds himself, something in the way that his gaze lingers on the mirrors tacked to the ceiling behind Connie for a second too long, something in the way that he seems to be looking straight through her) Connie finds herself feeling a little sympathetic. Just a little though. Not enough to let them keep the fucking  _ raven.  _

“I’m afraid that I still can’t allow it,” she says evenly. Keep it together Connie, keep it together. Fifteen more minutes and everything in this godforsaken store is somebody else’s problem, ravens and cheekbones and not-real boys and all. 

“Well now that’s just rude,” Raven Guy drawls. He does not break eye-contact. Connie does not break eye-contact. In the background she vaguely registers a s _ mack  _ as a chip bag falls to the floor followed by the  _ bam  _ of a candy bar. Short Girl is on the other side of the store, nowhere near the fallen things, and the temperature has dropped even further and one of the freezers in the back gives a sputter and a spark and then shorts out entirely as the neon sign in the window starts to shine so bright that it near overflows, spilling reddish-tinted light out onto the cracked old pavement. There is much more happening here than Connie thinks she’s able to see, in the same vein as the woman with the phone and that day her reflection stuck fast in the window, but this does not concern Connie; in the end it’s business as usual, and in the end she’s going to treat these people like she would any other, regardless of whatever weird shit they’ve gotten themselves entangled with. That’s nothing to do with her. The only thing to do with her is right  _ here  _ and right  _ now  _ and the ever-important reminder that everything she does is for her paycheck. 

Connie, being Connie, still has not broken eye-contact with Raven Guy, though those tremors of unease from before are now more like full-body shudders. Connie, being Connie, would sooner die. Raven Guy isn’t subtle like Cheekbones, nor does he carry the same sort of careless elevation as Boat Shoes Boy or give off the blatant, purposeful airs that Short Girl’s been putting on, but he’s as strange as the rest of them- the planes of his face are cut from the same stuff as the shadow cast by the single streetlamp outside, and he looms tall over her and the ring he’s wearing makes no logical sense to the point where Connie can’t tear her eyes away from it. It’s a little scary. Then again, then again, most things around here are. 

“It’s policy,” Connie says, tearing her eyes away from the swirled mass of silver-gold- _ whatever  _ before she gives herself a headache. 

“Fuck policy,” Raven guy shoots back. Boat Shoes Boy does  _ not  _ grimace, but he does so in a pained, stilted way that draws attention to the fact that he is  _ not _ grimacing. The raven caws lowly, ruffles her wings and bristles in a ripple that rolls through her feathers. Cheekbones pinches the bridge of his nose, closes his eyes, and draws in one deep breath through his chest. 

“I’m sorry,” he tells her, and he sounds so painfully honest that Connie has half a mind to let him off the hook. The other half of said mind has abdicated and flown itself off to Bali for the night. 

“We could offer compensation,” Boat Shoes Boy offers. 

“Compensation,” Connie repeats dryly. “So that your friend can bring a bird into our store for a five minute shopping trip.”

Again her tone skates border between exasperated and pleasantly detached with all the ease of someone who has three older sisters and practice wheedling her way into getting what she wants.

“Yes,” Boat Shoes Boy says. “I’ve got-”

He goes to pull something from his pocket- likely a wallet, Connie thinks, because he’s an Aglionby boy and Aglionby boys like to solve their problems with money- when Cheekbones shoots out a hand and grabs him by the wrist so fast that the movement is hardly movement at all. His bones jut out through his skin, thin and fine like those of a bird, and then he looks at Boat Shoes with those dark eyes of his that are rife with some sort of meaning, and the overall effect is such that Connie feels as though she’s missed a step on a staircase. She watches as they have half a silent conversation, fixed eye contact and meaningful glances and all, while Raven Guy watches on and glowers and interjects with the odd phrase in  _ Latin _ or some shit and god oh god Connie is about to fucking  _ lose it.  _

“Remember Blue? Nino’s?” Cheekbones finally murmurs, like that is a string of words that is in any way coherent or meaningful. Apparently it means something to the other boys though, because they swing around in unison to look at Short Girl where she’s squinting at the packaging on the back of a candy bar and then hissing something before slamming it back on the display and repeating the process all over again. There is a chip bag that is Not Floating near her shoulder. It keeps gently Not Bumping into her and she keeps Not Swatting it away, flippant and unconcerned. Connie, of course, sees nothing and thinks nothing of it because Connie has lived in Henrietta for all of her life and Connie can turn a blind eye with the best of them.

“Oh,” Boat Shoes Boy says. When he grimaces this time he makes no effort to hide it. “Oh yes, that was- unpleasant.”

“I think you should go for a repeat performance,” Raven Guy tells him, reaching forward to poke a knuckle into his shoulder. Cheekbones is unamused; Boat Shoes just looks a little lost.

“Don’t be a dick,” Cheekbones warns. “You’re going to break him and then we won’t have anyone to drive us back. And stop antagonizing the cashier.”

Raven guy gives Connie a smug little grin, pointed on his sharp-boned face. She lets her gaze slide pointedly to the bird and then looks him straight in the eye and blinks very, very slowly. 

“I’ll antagonize whoever I want.”

“You will  _ not _ ,” snaps Short Girl from halfway across the store, her head whipping towards them so fast that Connie winces in sympathy. She storms over with a huff, rearranging the mess of chips and candy and soda in her arms with a terrifying ease and then punching Raven Guy in the arm hard enough that Connie can hear it from behind the counter. The raven caws at her and Raven Guy laughs and the air hums louder and louder and louder, thick with something that Connie has spent a lifetime trying not to understand. A bag of circus peanuts is Not Floating by Short Girl, and Connie takes a quick moment to criticize the tastes of whatever force it is that is exerting itself across from her and will cease to exist the moment that she can no longer see it. 

“And what are you gonna do about it?” Raven Guy snarks. Short Girl draws herself up to her full height- which barely comes to his collarbone- and jabs a finger into his chest. One of the chip bags falls. Cheekbones catches it and places it on the counter with an apologetic glance at Connie. 

“I’ll get Gansey to leave you on the side of the road somewhere!” Short Girl yelps. Boat Shoes Boy- who must be Gansey, he looks like a Gansey- gives a little jump, eyes going wide and hand coming up on his chest as if to say  _ me? _

“Oh my  _ god,  _ y’all are gonna get us kicked out,” Cheekbones snaps. He reaches forwards and- gently, with a care that does not match his tone or unimpressed bearing- takes the things from Short Girl’s arms and places them all on the counter. He snatches the Not Floating bag of circus peanuts with considerably less care and places it on the very top of the small  _ mountain  _ of products. The bird is still inside. Raven Guy still looks smug about it. Cheekbones is apologetic, Short girl is bordering on apocalyptic, Boat Shoes Boy looks like his head is about to split in two, and as for Connie?

Connie cuts her losses and reaches for the scanner.

Two minutes, more chip bags then she can count, and an argument over who’s paying that nearly brings the whole building down later, the group is out the front door with a gust of wind at their back and one last  _ caw  _ from the fucking  _ raven.  _ Connie watches as they all pile into the bright orange eyesore and drive off, taking the electric charge that had been getting thicker and thicker by the moment with them. Just like that the world starts to repair itself, kickstarts into action and begins to heal the little convenience store in a quiet apology for whatever it is that was just inflicted upon it. The freezer in the back rumbles back to life. The neon sign dies back down to its dull red-orange. A fly buzzes incessantly around the streetlamp outside, dashing back and forth beneath the dying yellow light.

_ Well _ , Connie thinks as she leans forwards onto the counter, props her head back up on her hand, and watches the hot dogs turn and turn and turn in the shitty convenience store’s shitty convenience store oven.  _ That was strange. _

But it is what it is, it was what it was, it’ll be what it’ll be, and Henrietta is as Henrietta does. The clock ticks on, and Connie breathes in the air that is warm and syrupy like the air around here so often is, and she watches her reflection in the mirror as it moves in time with her idle movement and she feels the way her nerves settle back into order while she revels for a moment in the soft, still silence, and then she turns around and turns a blind eye and moves on with her life. 

**Author's Note:**

> Please consider leaving a comment if you enjoyed!! I love hearing from you guys!!!
> 
> This fic took way longer than I expected, but now that it’s done im gonna finish the sarchengsy thing i had in the works. I was kinda disappointed that the timing of this made it so Henry couldn’t show up because i love him, but hopefully that will help make up for it a bit.


End file.
